Storage And Audio

Our highest-priced system is meant to do all things well, so there are a few significant differences between it and any "Ultimate Gaming" system. To begin with, gaming systems typically only need a few hundred gigabytes of storage, while somewhat similar multi-tasking configurations must have enough capacity to store large video files. Thus, while we could have easily chosen two 300 GB 10,000 RPM drives, we instead aimed for a 4 TB array.

Samsung has recently expanded its Spinpoint F1 product line with models that target standard desktops, RAID arrays, and low-power systems. The bad news is that NewEgg was only carrying the standard version at the time of our build. However, this isn’t a problem for us since previous tests have shown that the performance difference, though measurable, isn’t practically discernable.

Now that we have 4 TB to work with, the question of what kind of RAID array to use comes into play. Placing all four drives in level-zero mode (RAID 0) would maximize capacity and throughput while risking lost data. Mirroring two twin-drive level-zero arrays to create a RAID 0+1 configuration would provide 100% redundancy with relatively low CPU overhead on our chipset’s software RAID controller, but at half the theoretical maximum throughput and capacity. A RAID 5 array would be the best compromise of transfer performance, capacity, and redundancy, but would hog CPU cycles in the calculation of parity bits. Since this is a performance shootout, we chose level-zero.

Had this been a $5,000 PC, we would have considered adding a hardware RAID controller card. Furthermore, this is the only place where we were forced to compromise an otherwise ideal build. We should also note that the on-board Intel controller is capable of excellent RAID 5 performance–even though processor load could be significant, our Core 2 Quad has power to spare since most applications can’t use all four cores.

A do-everything PC must be able to use the latest media formats, and if we had to choose between Blu-ray disk and the now-defunct HD DVD standards, we’d easily choose the survivor of that format war. Fortunately, Lucky Goldstar made such decisions unnecessary in its well-priced multi-format drives.

The GGW-H20L is among the least-expensive BD-RE drives on the market, so we’re not paying extra for the HD DVD reading capability. And since the HD DVD capability is free, buyers might want to take advantage of close-out prices on movies in this format.

A lower price doesn’t mean inferior performance, either. The GGW-H20L features class-leading write speeds of 6x for BD-R and 16x for DVD-R media. Anyone looking for faster DVD-R writes will have to add a second drive, since DVD burners without Blu-Ray capabilities have now reached 22x burn speeds.

In spite of what Mark Twain said, familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt. We’ve been so pleased with the Asus Xonar DX audio card that we’ve carried it through several System Builder Marathons. This product became our primary choice after it became obvious that a poorly-placed power connector on the slightly better Xonar D2X caused it not to fit our previous high-end configurations.

On the other hand, William Shakespeare was right to say love is blind. Our appreciation of the Xonar DX design and performance caused us to overlook that Asus had designed its X48 motherboard with a PCI, rather than a PCI Express slot, at the top. The card works as expected, but in the bottom slot. Installation was less convenient, as was power cable management.

A PCI version of the Xonar D2X, called the Xonar D2, doesn’t require any additional power connection. Without any power connector to block the DIMM slots, the Xonar D2 would have easily fit the upper PCI slot. The Xonar D2’s slightly superior specifications would have made it the perfect choice for the top PCI slot.

Even if budget limits had prevented us from using the slightly better Xonar D2 PCI, a PCI version of the less-expensive Xonar DX was also available. The Xonar D1 offers the same benefits in slot position and cable management as the more-expensive Xonar D2, but at the lower price of the Xonar DX.

cjdavis7So, how many times can they drop NewEgg's name in one article?

The reason we partnered up with NewEgg on this was to have access to a much wider range of hardware then we'd otherwise have. My hope is that this is an asset to our readers and does not interfere editorially.

cangelini

Duncan NZI'd drop Neweggs name lots if they gave me a $4500 system

Just to clarify, all of the hardware goes straight back to NewEgg once the story is done. The arrangement simply gives us access to the hardware, straight from e-tail, to build, benchmark, and write about. It's good for us because we're saved the effort of finding manufacturers who want to send out their hardware and we think it's good for our readers because we can construct the systems we'd *really* build on these budgets. =)

master9716

4500 . Why would anyone spend 800 on a case? I dont really see a point to the article but oh well . New egg does have the best prices out there but mwave does beat it sometimes.

cangelini

master97164500 . Why would anyone spend 800 on a case? I dont really see a point to the article but oh well . New egg does have the best prices out there but mwave does beat it sometimes.

Why would anyone spend $500 on a video card or $1,000 on a processor? ;-)

This is why we do three stories with a trio of price targets--something for everyone!

neiroatopelcc

Anyone more concerned with looks and styling than just function would spend more than a few bucks on a case. ie. Anyone who'd pick an alfa romeo or a lexus over an ordinary honda accord would want a more expensive case.

neiroatopelcc

We should also note that the on-board Intel controller is capable of excellent RAID 5 performancePerhaps I'm mistaken, but I am not thrilled by the intel raid controller. Perhaps the ich10 is better than the ich9 in this regard, but I only scored about 90mb/sec max read speed in raid5 (5x500gb) on my p35. That's the same speed as my 3x 35gb raptors in raid 0 on my secondary system, so it's okay. But still. A single new spinpoint is faster than the raid 5, so I'm quite sure my ich9r controller is requiring too many resources to work properly fast. Or it's my oc that causes it to slow down somehow. Dunno yet. Anyway, my experience with intel software raid running raid5 isn't that it's speedy.

ps. wouldn't it have made sense to save a few bucks on storage (2x1,5tb or something) and added memory cooling blocks to go with the water cooled chassis?

randomizer

Memory doesn't get hot enough to justify losing 2TB of storage just so you can add some fancy cooling blocks to it. 4TB does sound pretty sweet, but I don't know how I'd fill up 500GB let alone 8x that. E-peen I guess.

neiroatopelcc

"2.) The Cooler Master CMPSU-1000HX power supply has ferrite rings on the flat, removable PCI Expresshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express power cables that prevented them from being run between cards. We had to use the soldered-on "round" cables for the top card."

it's still a corsair psu according to the picture. (page 6)

@ randomizer : If you'd replace the 4 drives with 2 bigger ones you'd only lose 1tb of storage, and half your theoretical read/write speed (and slightly improve your seek time). Anyway, if memory is running hot I would definetly want some cooling for it. My first choice would be to throw away the sound card and see if 90 bucks was enough for a decent cooler (onboard sound is excellent really), but since toms is rather happy about the sound, I think storage is the best place to compromise.

Anyway, my point is - add a cooler to the modules! actually ocz already have models out there with watercooling built in - since they picked ocz they could've gotten those if newegg had em.

Oh yes, sorry I missed the 1.5TB that you mentioned in your previous post. I seem to be blinded to things in brackets, yet ironically I use brackets alot.

EDIT: Can somebody remove the first two comments?

Shadow703793

Good choice on PSU this time. I understand why you went with this cooling set up but there are better performing ones for same price. Motherboard is actually $240 on Newegg currently.

Proximon

I'm not sure I would run half that comp on a 500W PSU, which is essentially what you are doing with a Corsair 1000HX. I'm a big fan of Corsair, but the 2 VERY distinct 12V rails make me nervous here. It's an incredibly robust PSU, but I would feel better, if I were building it, using the Silverstone 1200W.

It's a shame you couldn't have included this new vapor chamber tech ATI is adopting. Time marches on I guess and there will always be some new thing.

neiroatopelcc

ProximonI'm not sure I would run half that comp on a 500W PSU, which is essentially what you are doing with a Corsair 1000HX. I'm a big fan of Corsair, but the 2 VERY distinct 12V rails make me nervous here. It's an incredibly robust PSU, but I would feel better, if I were building it, using the Silverstone 1200W.It's a shame you couldn't have included this new vapor chamber tech ATI is adopting. Time marches on I guess and there will always be some new thing.

What is the problem with running half the system on a 500W rail? My system at home (conroe @ 1.6v, 7xsata 2xide, 4870 & fans) could make do with something like 550w total according to the online psu calculator, so I'm sure a 500w rail would be plenty for 'half a system'

warezme

Its a very nice build. I like it.

However, its useful to note that this build comes at the heels of the release of X58 platforms with mobo manufacture's already demo'ing retail to near retail packages and the shipment of Nehalem chips a couple of months or less away, its going to make this $4500 build obsolete. While there is always something new around the corner, this isnt just an extra doo dad added to an existing platform but a completely new platform non compatible with the current line of chips.Its a big deal. Its also very likely GPU companies will release revamped special edition cards to go with all those shiny new icore chips, likely leaving those 4870's behind.

Proximon

Seems like the total max load on this machine would be around 800W. So, you would want to balance the load just right so that you stayed around 400W per rail... Actually, the Corsair tested as 85% efficient in that range, so I guess that leaves me with the margin I would want. If Corsair wants to approve this PSU for quad crossfire, and they do, with the 5 year warranty and service to back it up, that's good enough.if it doesn't last 5 years... you get a new one

geok1ng

Nothing wrong with the Corsair 1000w- it has been used on TRI SLI 280s without problems, the parts used are actually rated at 600w+ on each rail and Corsair support is amazing to say the least.

i dont like the idea of using a RAID 5 solution- write times are bad, recovery time is too big and with large drives there is a real chance that an error during recovery will make the whole array unusable. I went with a RAID 0 system drive and an external drive for dayly drive image backup. the intel approach for RAID 10 (instead of the 0+1 mentioned) is also great: mirror first and stripe later, and it works with an uneven number of drives: just createc a RAID1 setup with more than 2 drives on the Intel RAID manager.

I would also point out that the "new" Asus sound card with HD audio/HDMI 1.3a support is already available for sale in the USA, so choosing a last generation sound card for a $4500 system at least strange.

last but not least : running DDR3 at CAS 8/1333Mhz will make the system actually SLOWER than currunt top end DDR2 based results, even at 8GB! P45 is THE king in the pre Nehalem era.

instead of the 4tb : / I duno If I even come close to half a tb waste of money if ya ask me unless your a highly addictive to downloading stuff but even then it is hard

neiroatopelcc

kelfenhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146799instead of the 4tb : / I duno If I even come close to half a tb waste of money if ya ask me unless your a highly addictive to downloading stuff but even then it is hard

You're saying that people who use more than 500gb disk is a highly addictive downloader?

I've got over 3tb of data at home, and I've only got a 2mbit/512kbit internet line. How much do you think I'm downloading ? No sire. In this modern world where any game or productivity title takes up space in gigabyte notation 500 is actually a rather small number.

Easy- you record HD video with your computer. Uncompressed, full-bitrate 1920x1080p HD video takes up 19 GB/hour. A 500 GB HDD has about 465 GB of space, which would let you record about 24 hours of video. That's about 8 to 10 movies, which is ridiculously small for a DVR. Even heavily-compressed HD signals that cable and satellite companies like to send out are still something like 8 GB/hour. 500 GB would be a little small as you could record 58 hours of video. 500 GB would be fine if you only record SD stuff, though as that is more like 2 GB/hour and 500 GB would give you about 230 hours of recording time, which is quite a bit.

kelfen

Well, I supose if it is just for gaming I am not going to come close to 500gb but ya downloading HD stuff your going to need the space.

TeraMedia

Why no SSD? If this is the high-budget machine, I would expect to see a high-performance SSD for O/S, programs, and temp space. Yeah that raises the price a lot, but it also raises the I/O rate potential quite a bit.